End of the Earth
by The Waitress
Summary: They do not know what they're looking for. But this will do just fine. Synlet.


**End of the Earth**

**Author/Artist:** The Waitress  
**Character/Pairing:** Buddy Pine?Violet, Synlet?  
**Fandom:** The Incredibles  
**Words: **~6600  
**Ratings:** Eh, close R for heavily implied sexual situations, death, and relationship troubles  
**Genre:** Drama/Angst

**A/N:** I'm trying to remain as IC as I can with these two. Kinda long. This is highly improbably so I might be a kook for this. EDIT: Sorry guys, I don't know what happened to the separation. Added some finishing touches and we're good!

**P.S:** The rating is only for heavily implied sex. And slightly twisty relationship issues. It's a progression, if anything. Confused? Drop me a note 'cause a lot of it's symbolic. I guess.

**Disclaimer:** Do not own. Unfortunately, well, depending on how you see it.

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_"It takes great wit and interest and energy to be happy. The pursuit of happiness is a great activity. One must be open and alive. It is the greatest feat one has to accomplish." - Robert Herrick_

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_.  
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The first time he held her, it was in an iron grip on her bony arm, pulling her close before she could fall after their initial crash.

Her violet eyes did not even flash in shock or waver with fear, rather only looked into his impossibly cold eyes on his distorted face with absolutely nothing on her own.

A simple chilly, _"You're still alive?"_

He smirked, an eerie effect caused by a scar from having his cheek cut open from mouth to ear. They just stood there, amid the "normal" people flitting on through daily life on the sidewalk.

He let go.

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"Don't sound _too_ excited kiddo." An insult given the fact it's been ten years.

Instead of screaming or running, she did something he never would have guessed.

Violet shrugged, nonchalance oozing off of her, and began walking past him. In all of his life, Buddy Pine (Syndrome was a dream he long put aside) had never been more dumbstruck. His pride never more scratched.

Raged tensed through him and he reached out and gripped her shirt, jerking himself to her and pulling her back. Whipping the _girl_ around with his hand still on the blouse he looked down at the seemingly frail kid, purple eyes sharp yet blank. He felt cheated; he had hoped no one from the past would catch up with him.

He did not know what say, so he released her shirt and motioned for her to start walking with him.

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She was walking ahead, something he noticed immediately. To his disappointment it was not nervousness coursing through her, rather a calm, almost accepting aura that rippled off of her in peaceful waves.

"So," her voice clear and quiet, "as an old friend I'll ask, what brings you to Illinois? A bit normal wouldn't you say?"

His eyes narrowed, too nosy and collected for her own damn good.

"I am passing through," he shot back annoyed, it wasn't her business if he worked. _He wanted to snap she wasn't an 'old friend,' but maybe she was, he had never had any._

Violet raises an eyebrow but did not comment for a moment.

"Funny, that's what I am doing." Her thin hands stuffed into jeans that hung a bit too loose on her wiry frame to be attractive.

Pine chuckled, glad to have a slight upper hand in the conversation now.

"What - tired of saving precious little sheep lives?" His tone drips with triumph.

"Yes."

_Damnit._

_._

_._

They ended up in a tiny café neither knew that was entirely empty, yet to Pine it all seemed suffocating with this girl's overwhelming iciness. He did not even realize he was stroking his cheek scar until he caught her watching him.

Tearing his hand away angrily, he eyed the ridiculous looking menu, before ordering black coffee.

She ordered ginseng tea - whatever that was - he didn't care though.

They sat in the back sipping their drinks, neither willing to admit to being in the presence of an enemy. Violet glanced over at him from time to time but for an hour nothing was said.

Neither knew how to reach out.

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Tea long gone cold, she sighed and leaned back in the small chair, watching him the way he had watched her a moment ago. Noticing his hidden discomfort, she took in the gruesome scars on his face and running down his neck, he had lost weight, but she could not judge when she thumbed her own wrist bone.

Lines had formed around his eyes and his fiery hair was cropped and muted. Time had taken its toll and had almost made a regular civilian out of the madman. Almost.

"Earlier," his eyes were hovering at some point over her shoulder, "you said you had stopped saving lives?" He smirked, a picture she was losing patience with, but it died and a serious frown took its place.

"No- I said I was tired, not that I stopped," she brought a finger to her thin lips, a grin perching itself there to Pine's anger. But when he waited for her to continue, she remained silent, a sudden glaze creeping over her perpetually dead eyes.

_At least she has some emotion in there,_ he thought wickedly.

_"Well?"_ He asked impatiently, watching the girl come back from whatever memory she sunk into.

"That's it, I just got tired." Her hands found the teacup, thumbs tracing the ring. Pine nodded, accepting the answer for what it was.

He had gotten tired too. Living within now a world that was constantly consuming does that. He misses the volcano, it's burning, destroying tendency, and realizes he got that feeling from being in this world so long.

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"Interesting... so does _daddy_ know where you are?" She would have answered with the exact location had it been anyone but _Syndrome_; her body instantly cooled down, mind clear and her slow breathing easing even deeper.

"I suppose, but I haven't heard from them in a while." There, short and vague; she had a twinge of fondness thinking of her dear father back in Metroville, who is probably waiting after all these years, hair whitening at the temples.

But such feelings she had no need for now.

Pine watched her blank face with the precision of an artist, finding no flaw or slip in the mask (was it?) that made up her beautiful face.

"I'm sure." He whispered, and would have sent a chill down her spine had she even cared enough.

It seemed almost strange to see him so casual amidst the _normal_ people of the world. He didn't seem to blend in, to merge with them. To Violet, seeing him again she had the feeling he never fully became human. Never grew up and assimilated into the world like everyone else naturally does.

Pine wonders the same thing about her.

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_"So..."_ He wonders why his voice goes soft, _"Do you see any of... our old pals? Or, in my case, enemies?"_

Violet wonders what he means, but then gets it. _"No, I make a point not to."_

Pine glances out the large pane window, watching something, then says, _"I probably wouldn't either."_

_._

_._

They walked around until dusk, mostly in silence. Violet watched his awkward gait and noticed he limped on his left leg and felt glad about his suffering; Pine noticed her eyes never lost their deep icy shield and wondered were she to bring a real shield up whether or not it would be cold to the touch.

Suddenly they stopped at an intersection, the streets were near empty (just like everything else here) and night was barely penetrated by the meager streetlights.

Violet craned her neck to look at the much taller man, who seemed to ignore her blank scrutiny now that he had been on the receiving end of it for hours.

"I guess this is where we depart," she said quietly.

Pine raised his eyebrows, looking down at her with a sneer ticking itself across his face.

"Depart? Who says I am letting you go anywhere?" His tone was challenging, but Violet didn't let it affect her.

"Who says you have to?" Her words cracked the air like a whip, sending a shocked look across his face. He recovered and snarled at her, straightening to his full height, which in her opinion was not needed but quite impressive.

Violet watched him, waiting for him to do _something_ because she certainly did not know what should happen.

Pine stopped trying to read her face (it was pointless anyway) and his eyes quickly took in their surroundings.

No one around.

"I suppose you are trying to sum up the energy to kidnap me?" came her slightly cheerful question, a tight smile stretching across her face that seemed more disturbing than his own. Pine had the urge to step back suddenly.

"No, I lost that energy." He made it sound like it had been a hobby.

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Violet looked away, up at the empty sky, then back at him. She was thinking and he didn't interrupt.

He didn't do many things anymore.

"Then, how about you come find some with _me?_"

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He looks at her for a moment, and she stumbles. _"Well, I did not mean it like that,"_ her voice should sound embarrassed but she is cool.

Pine lets her continue on this path for a while.

Stepping back gets her attention and she watches him, so he says:

_"Yes."_

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_._

For some reason, she smiles quite brilliantly and he feels uneasy. She writes down her hotel room number, and strides away with the same casual sway as before, such a long stride swing, and he lets her.

He has a new plan in his hand. How interesting.

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The next morning he met Violet outside her hotel room, a rucksack was slung over his shoulder and he had two bus tickets in his hand. She dropped her suitcase and ripped them from his hand, a dawning sense of disbelief singing itself through her. This was _real._

"Montana?" Pine shrugged rather awkwardly, his eyes piercing hers, but finding none of the emotion she was feeling. Violet looked back down at the two tickets gripped in her barely shaking hand.

"I heard they trade using cattle there."

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They made a sort of game out of it; they would stay in a place until one would suddenly buy a plane (bus, boat) ticket and leave it behind for the other to decide whether or not to come. It was a sacrifice of control each time they did, but neither had bailed out just yet, certain the other (weaker) one would. Violet would work a job wherever she went, so more times than not Pine was stuck in San Diego (Newark, Ibiza, Milan, Hong Kong) waiting for her. When he found out about her predicament he discreetly began wiring money into her account.

She never found out, to his vastly unfamiliar delight.

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Walking through a sweltering Georgian (neither remembered the name) city Pine cursed his pale genetics when a panting Violet suddenly stopped, her burned face watching his. He locked eyes with her and held them for ten seconds.. he counted.

It was the longest eye contact they had made yet.

He understood, somehow.

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Next flight was booked for Moscow. For a long, long time.

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Everyone in the restaurant thinks they're courting, so they ditch halfway through appetizers and head to a desolate coffee shop (no doubt giving them more reason to believe so). Sitting among no one they become a bit loose in their speech, perhaps because Pine spikes their drinks with some alcoholic concoction they picked up in Northern Wales.

_"You know what?"_ She begins; alcohol was never her favorite drink.

_"What?"_ Sipping his lukewarm coffee, he ponders how it is never exactly the way he wants it.

_"We - are perhaps the only people in the world making the most of this..."_

_"Most of what?"_ Leaning a bit closer, his eyes catch the flutter of her pulse, the royal purple flecks in her dark lavender eyes. This is as close as they have ever come.

He finds it hard to breathe.

_"...Decay."_ Her word is a whisper, but nothing gives in her voice. It is true, they live in a world that is dying, and they are the only ones trying to truly live. She leans forward a bit, then blinks at his proximity, eyes suspicious.

Pine huffs, leaning back and the moment discloses.

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They sit in tense silence for a moment.

_"You act like there is more."_ He doesn't look at her, for if he did he would see something flit in her violet eyes.

_"There is - why do you think I invited you along?"_

_._

_._

He reminds her of a steel statue with a rusting iron center as he stands in the waves swishing against the shores of some Grecian isle. So strong and unyielding until a single sweep comes to break him to the ground, and Violet vaguely fantasizes if she could be the one to bring this ex-villain down from his desperate climb back to his pedestal.

A pedestal, he could not seem to find.

This would be her last gift to a father whose heart had broken the day she left seven years ago, with the last of her energy. _Oh daddy...I'm sorry it has come to this, but it's all for you._

_._

_._

She leaves a ticket to Cairo, Egypt, a place where he's certain they'll both get skin cancer. Pine rants and raves the whole way there about imminent sunburn and _I am not spending an entire week again with my skin matching my hair_ and Violet figures out what she was doing with him; he was _unstable_ and she was balanced, grounded yet still moving.

Violet can handle anything thrown at her by putting a shield up and letting it all bounce right off. He absorbs it all, letting everything vibrate through his body, doing its damage until it eventually stops, no trace left in his hollow body.

_A time for insight,_ she entertains thoughtfully as her hair starts clinging to her neck.

When she took out a bottle of sunscreen from her purse, his anger seemed to slide right off him and she knew she was right. However, her smile seemed to slide from her face onto his, and she thinks about being absorbed eventually into this ever-changing structure of him.

Violet did not mind that possibility at all: she knew she could just freeze him from the inside out.

But her energy was slipping away.

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_"So, how did you run out of energy?"_

_"Does it matter? The end result is why I'm here."_

_._

_._

In the frigid air of Quebec's night, wrapped up in their coats (eventually given to a homeless couple courtesy of _Violet_), Pine lifts a shocked Violet off the ground and kisses her fervently, just to see if he could feel ice crystals on her chapped lips.

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Only smooth, smooth skin, but he does not stop kissing her.

She pulls him closer, and he feels her hands tremble.

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Her fingers dig into his sides as she arches over him, bringing their rocking bodies ever closer, gasping at the friction. Buddy curves his spine under her, gripping her hips _so_ tightly he knows bruises will be there tomorrow.

He wants to apologize. And he does, many, many times. About every little thing, Violet catches.

Violet loves tracing lines over his numerous scars, something he let her do only after she managed to convince him she loved the imperfections.

_After all, he certainly wasn't her first lover, not by a long shot, but she doesn't say that. He might be empty but she's certain he has some masculine insecurity tumbling in him._

When he found the long, thin scar at the base of her navel, hitching his finger on it, a shiver shot through her heated frame and when he slides it lower and lower and _pushes_ so teasingly, something snaps inside and drops her right over the edge into his burning eyes.

Her body relaxes and in light awe he watched the impeccably hardened woman loosening into something _somnolent_ over him.

Buddy wonders if he could smash her into a million pieces with a single swipe right about now, watch her shatter all over the bed and if she would let him put her back together.

Into what he's certain she should be.

Sighing, Violet relaxes against him, everything about her rigid body now liquefied in sleep.

_She's changed anyway,_ he thinks sleepily, enjoying her fragile weight on his chest. All this make him pull her near in a fumble, holding her sleeping form close the entire night.

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The next morning he books a flight to Rome, leaving her a plane ticket on the night stand.

He _guesses_ it would be nice if she tags along.

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He ignored the nervousness in his stomach as he begins to board the plane.

_She got the ticket, right?_

_._

_._

He's sitting in a park on a dirty bench, the sky dreary and coiling with thunderstorms. It has been three days, and he hasn't found the desire to move, he's comfortable like this.

As the thunder rumbles, he stays still, even at the first drop. It's the only one that hits him.

He looks up to a purple umbrella against a silver sky.

And she grins.

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Violet refuses to answer his questions about her family, even though both he and her know _that's_ in the past. Violet will only shake her head and sip her damned tea from the back of the room of the café they have decided to hole up in that day, somewhere outside of Sussex, refusing to admit that she is ashamed at how she left her blood behind.

She doesn't mention how he almost left her behind.

_"Tell me about your family," her counter-words always are._

"They're dead to me. Most of them really dead." His tone sharper than any (steel?) blade. Violet nods, she expected that answer; she always had a feeling he wasn't too sad about it either. So she says something that is a half-lie, because at least some of it is true.

_"Guess we're not so different after all."_

Buddy does not reply, sipping his cold coffee, wondering if in time he'll too be dead to this woman.

At the same time thinking of a way to try and make his mark on her before it's too late.

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It's been months, but he has the curious need to see her powers. Did she still have a super suit?

_(He refuses to look in her suitcase)_

Will she ever go back to that life? When he had asked she simply said she wanted to live normally for now. He accepted the answer then but now was growing impatient.

Buddy and Violet lay stretched across their bed and watched the television on mute (neither understood German anyway), the arm draped behind her stroked her shoulder, which he noticed was still bony. He'll have to make her a bigger breakfast.

"Are you _ever_ gonna use your powers...in front of me?" He added the last part to avoid a snarky reply from her. Violet sighed, pulling out of his too-warm embrace and sitting cross-legged at the base of the bed, feeling the hard mattress under her and the stuffiness of the expansive room.

"Not here." She casts a significant look over the room, and he gets the idea.

At least he thinks.

They talk about the States, and he hears her laugh for the first time when he holds up the tickets for Kansas.

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She's looking out the car window, exploring the landscape of Nevada's desert within a matter of seconds, as they both soon learned that Nevada was the same for _a hundred frickin' miles_.

_"So, why do you just want to be normal?"_ He tries his question again in hopes of stifling the heat and the quiet.

_"See what it's like, I've always wanted it."_

Buddy laughs shortly, his eyes never leaving the black stretch of tar in front of him.

_"Violet, when you know there's something better out there, you don't want normal."_

_"Whose says there's something better?"_

He ignores her answer; it wasn't the one he wanted.

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He shivers slightly beneath her despite the heat passing through their rocking bodies, her eyes are always cold and his are always absorbing it, taking it in so it doesn't affect him so much.

He hates himself for letting it though, so he gives and gives _whatever it is_ to make up for it.

Violet laughs a little like a whimper, and slides her hands up his chest, enjoying the different textures of his freckled skin.

"Tell me something about you," she's gleaned almost nothing from him. He could say the same for her.

_"I still hate you."_ _But you are so beautiful._

And then she laughs, clear and frigid sending a chill through him he remembered only from his childhood days of snow and blizzards. He brings a hand between her thighs to stroke her, enjoying her squirming against his thumb.

_"I'm sorry. I'm sorry I do this to you."_

"See? We have another thing in common." Her face soon contorts beautifully and he watches her climax, catching her as she falls onto his chest. She was silent but he heard the last part of her words.

_How long until you end up just hating yourself?_

He does not sleep that night.

_"I'm sorry. I'm sorry."_

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They both begin to wonder how long this will continue as they check into a Finnish motel, after the manager asks if they want the honeymoon suite.

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"You're horrible at..." she doesn't want to say 'relationships' because to her this is not one.

It is _not._

"So are you, love, so are you."

Violet almost cries because she _wants_ to feel bad for him. Instead she sends an overdue letter to her father, who replies in a week with almost _ten solid pages_ of loving worry and _you better get your ass home for Thanksgiving._ As if he had heard from her just yesterday.

She starts sobbing in relief, when they're walking down the market streets in India as she shoves the letter into her purse before _he_ sees.

Buddy doesn't because her face is smooth like usual.

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They seem to exhaust each other, more than they could ever help each other.

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"Is there anything going on inside that head?" He raps on her dark head with his knuckle slightly, a wicked grin she finds eerily attractive stretching over his face.

"Just same old things." She doesn't elaborate on her icy response. And he watches her for some time under the Texan sun, wildly half-expecting her to start melting.

"Ah...wanna practice your powers?" She wonders about this, how he's almost always torn between admiration and hatred to her better half.

"...Sure."

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Their meter is running on empty, and yet they still keep each other up at night.

One will break eventually, they reason.

Eventually.

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_"You really are an awful daughter,"_ he points out after she confesses she hadn't spoken to her father in _forever_.

Violet doesn't look at him, she was debating letting him read the letter. _"Yeah, and you suck at doing things right."_

Had it been anyone else, at any time before this, he would have punched them. Now he only snatches the letter from her hand and tears it.

She looks at him, _"How mature."_ Taking it back she examines the torn corner.

_How weary._

_._

_._

When she begins writing to her father regularly, he feels a bitter sense of accomplishment; she told him she had not spoken to the old man in years.

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"Want me to buy you a new life?" He asks her one day as they sit in the boiling shade of a bar in Mexico, flies flitting about their glistening brows. She raises a dark eyebrow and he elaborates, his tone mocking, "New identity, new everything, like mine." He's been drinking and he is not making any sense anymore.

He's assuming she hates herself rather than the course of life she's making. He never did give up trying to find out her reasoning.

She is tempted to tell him there was no reason.

It simply _is._

Instead Violet sets her beer down, looks into his eyes once and over the jagged scars littering his uneven hairline and the left side of his mouth, hollowing part of his cheek; he was not even a handsome man to begin with.

She thinks about his barely there winces when his bad leg lands wrong, how she's always on top to prevent him from crushing her.

"One like yours?"

He snarls, stung, she only gives him a cool smile. _He asked._

_They resume drinking, chatting about past jobs and crushed dreams in their inebriated state.  
_

_._

_._

_"What are you thinking?"_ Her fingers are stitching back together a scarf she bought in Ukraine.

About icy women and how his emotions get the best of him. _"Nothing."_

She doesn't give up. _"Just tell me, you know I listen."_

_"Fix your scarf."_ He wants to believe her, but she cannot comprehend his thoughts.

_"You can be a right jackass."_

_"See? You just proved my point."_ Buddy knows this, because he is always proven right.

Even when he wants to be wrong.

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They both are terrified of _this, whatever it could be,_ going wrong, which they know means somehow it will.

But they won't let go.

_Not yet._

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It has been over a year and they have not even covered a portion of all the earth had waiting for them.

It almost seemed too much for two people running on empty.

Violet silently handed him a ticket, her face showing only a little worry (she let her emotions slip through only when she felt he _needed_ to know), his anticipation spiked as he opened the ticket:

_Metroville, California_

She leaves silently and he doesn't follow.

_Why would he?_

_How could she?_

_._

_._

Neither knows how to make this right, because it is _their fault all theirs not mine never was._

_._

_._

He wants to send her a letter, but tears it apart before he gets past the first three words:

_Violet my dear,_

_'Stupid, it's all stupid.' _And he freezes at his desk, unsure of how to reach across the sea.

_"I'm sorry, I can't find the strength move."_

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Three weeks pass and Violet hovers through the other surrounding cities, enjoying the familiar liveliness of her last hometown. She gets a good job (thanks to her pretty little degree) scraping together money for her next trip.

She might go to Panama, maybe she'll melt time away in the sun there.

Instead visits her parents for the first time in years and it feels weird but _it's alright, we're all healing_. She missed Thanksgiving, but they had frozen leftovers.

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Violet finds she misses having someone with her; but tells herself she can gain herself easier this way. Violet was not even surprised that he did not come. He would never set foot near this city after the humiliation it brought on him, and in a way she feels safe.

Besides, (semi) good things never stayed with her long.

Especially the things she wanted.

_"Do you dream of me at night, Violet?"_

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He stayed rooted in Scotland, unable to get his stiff legs to move outside of the too cold country. She left, so he stays.

That's it.

He thinks about storming the city, just to draw out the precious Incredibles. But damnit, she _knew_ he wouldn't go there, he could, but wouldn't.

And she exploited that, all the while reminding him of her blasted father.

_(He ignores the fact he hasn't thought about Incredible in a year)._

Eventually - because it is always good to cover as much ground as possible, he thinks - he grabs the plane ticket from his breast coat-pocket, and books another flight.

_"Only of the what ifs, Buddy."_

He makes it direct.

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This is the first time he has boarded a plane alone. He has never liked planes.

Even less so nowadays.

_"They aren't so bad."_

_'Only when you're with me, though.'_

Why hadn't he said that aloud?

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He grips the ticket tightly as people begin shuffling towards the plane.

_That's a really big plane._

But she is on the other side of the world.

And so he boards alone.

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When he shows up at her hotel door, she glances around (for what?), swings her arms around him and knocks the already clumsy man off balance, but she pulls him steadily back to her and her lips. He can _feel _the happiness wafting off of her, something that makes _him_ feel happy.

_Could have been worse, actually,_ he muses.

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Worse, as in he could have never seen her again.

_"I'm sorry I let you leave. I'm sorry."_

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_That's twice you walked away._

She looks at from him across the room, her mouth almost not matching her words, _"Yes, yes it is."_

_Did you expect me to follow?_ For some reason, he wouldn't be bothered if she had.

Violet gives him a flash of a smile, _"I expect nothing, but it was nice of you to perform according to your hopes."_

He does not understand, he does not understand a lot about her.

Instead he embraces her, hands squeezing her lower ribs the way she likes. She is still so tiny.

_I do nothing anyone wants._

But Violet is working her slightly warmed fingers into his shirt, and ignores his tone.

_"Good thing you wanted it as well."_

Buddy could not argue with that.

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Buddy tried to make love as best he could, and she returned his affection, both trying their hardest for the other, which was not that bad if they admitted it, and when they dropped from exhaustion and bliss, they were back in a hotel again with only themselves.

Which was fine with them, this was a pretty good place to be.

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They laid in her hotel bed that night, listening to the other breathe, his arm draped over her thin waist and her tiny body curved against his chest. His thick fingers play with the smooth skin between her breasts, something he did often to her delight.

"Why did you just plan on walking away?" He did not elaborate, but she knew what he was talking about. Violet didn't speak for a minute, gathering her thoughts like he knew she did whenever she had to choose her words carefully.

"Because you survived everything my fath-we threw at you," he snorted at this, and a grin tickled her lips, "I figured... you deserved the chance to have life throw its own things at you now."

"You know...if you hadn't reacted the way you did, I actually would have started it all over again." She feels this to be the truth, but she also finds it to be a lie.

He needed her, as much as she had needed him.

_"...Who says it was only a reaction?"_ Came her flat response.

Buddy just quietly chuckles, a warm sound that seeps into her head. The statement makes no sense but he responds anyways.

"I think I know you.. well.. better than I use to."

_Not to mention, I've been following your lead this whole time,_ comes the thought, and he ponders it quietly for a while.

Violet almost leaves him right there because he's _right_, instead a chill settles over her, freezing her in place.

_Could she really bring herself to leave anyways?_

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Violet lays awake later that night, thinking about how her plan failed; how she had meant to destroy him as painlessly as possible. Did she? Did she fail in bringing the tyrant from her past down?

She had been so sure this was the way to restore herself.

_'Would it be the end if I didn't?'_

She sleeps in, to Buddy's light amusement he finds her stretched across him, invisible to the naked eye except for her delicate shorts.

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Violet woke up to him softly smiling down at her. Frowning, she looks around, at her hands, and how they are not there. He reaches for one, and holds on gently.

And she chuckles, blinking against the morning light.

_I suppose this is my answer._

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_Why did you let me back into your life?_

You are my life.

He does not know if she is serious or not.

But her smile almost makes him believe.

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The next day, they both leave for New Zealand; a place Violet heard was absolutely beautiful. Buddy grunted and boarded the plane quickly, his large hand gripping hers the whole time. He never fully got over riding in planes, but she didn't mind, letting him _squeeze the life out my fingers, Buddy!_

_._

_._

They flitted about the continent of Australia for the longest time, taking in the culture and overall atmosphere of things backwards.

Speeding across the landscape on a tour bus (Violet's idea, Buddy wanted to _walk_) showing them the mountains, the only 'tourists' not snapping pictures and gasping in awe and were officially labeled 'the creepy couple' in the back.

In reality, they were just whispering their conversation under the roar of the others.

Violet sipped some tea concoction from a bottle, one with warm honey just the way she liked it, Buddy balanced his thermos of _"nasty, Buddy, nasty"_ coffee on his lame knee and watched them pass the land by against a cool crisp sky.

_Look, they drive on the other side of the road! ...Yes Buddy, like in England._ It is hard not to think of him as a just awoken child, but she manages.

_I know that, but I never really understood why._

_...They were here first, so they must have a reason._

_Yeah...to confuse us Americans._ A laugh escapes her, and he stops talking, mission accomplished. Instead he watches her but she is looking out over the plains, eyes alive and bright.

Violet decides not to point out that the United States has been around for a lot less time than New Zealand.

Instead of the impassiveness she would normally feel in situations like this, a little bit of affection bloomed in her chest. She leans into Buddy's languid embrace and falls asleep to the movement of the road, the warm air a soothing comfort.

.

.

And it was the warmth that awoke her.

He shook her gently as they stopped atop a cliff, and sat far away from the group, not that any would have offered. His fingers winding behind her neck to which she leans against his chest. Sleep hasn't entirely left her yet.

.

.

_'You sleep more than you used to.'_

You wear me out more that you used to.

_'But you smile more than you used to as well.'_

_._

_._

_"Feeling better?"_ His fingers play through her hair now, hairtie long ago lost its battle of keeping her hair contained.

_"What? What do you mean?"_ She asks from the softness of his shirt. He smells good; like eucalyptus and tea leaves, he smells like her tea.

It lifts her spirits.

_"You... told me you wanted to get... something back that you lost, so, did you?"_

Violet looks out over the countryside, her lungs sucking in as much fresh air as they could hold, the eucalyptus flushing her senses clean.

_"...I was looking for something?" _She looks into his eyes.

Buddy's hand slips down to entwine in hers.

And Violet squeezes back.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.


End file.
